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Forum:Titling
Episode titling Hey all. Should we come up with a consistency for titling an episode (if someone chooses to put their series name in the title for whatever reason)? Like, if someone wanted to put their series title in an episode title, for example it could be either: Conspiracy (The Next Generation episode) or Conspiracy (TNG episode). Both versions exist throughout the wiki. Thoughts? --Hawku 14:02, 31 January 2008 (UTC) :I haven't thought this all the way through but — how about only using the series title within the episode title if the episode title is one that many people might use, e.g. A Time to Heal (Star Trek: Oscar the Grouch episode) or New Beginnings (Days of Our Treks episode). Those are tongue-in-cheek examples, but you get my drift. --RahadyanS 14:20, 31 January 2008 (UTC) ::I'm not really sure it matters as long as when you apply it you apply it consistently. For example, Vengeance (PNX episode), Ghost Face Killa (PNX episode) and not mix and match, Vengeance (PNX episode), Ghost Face Killa (Star Trek: Phoenix-X episode). If a person applies it consistently then it is easy for another editor to type in the link to these episodes since there'll be a continuous pattern. Though an extension really only should be added if another article already exists, which is a rule I think we have all broken on numerous occasions especially with starship articles. – 15:08, 31 January 2008 (UTC) :::Yeah, exactly... Extensions should only be added to disambiguate one title from another. This is not how it's being done on STEU, but it should be: Vengeance (PNX episode) and Vengeance (Swiftfire episode)... or omit "episode": Vengeance (PNX) and Vengeance (Swiftfire) -- but if there was only one "episode" called "Vengeance", then the title should be simply Vengeance. As it is, all the extra extensions are just making things more complicated than they have to be, especially with starships, as has been brought up in the past, but it seems to be the apparent, common will/desire of the community to add them. 19:02, 31 January 2008 (UTC) ::::This is where I respectfully disagree. Naming the article with a qualifier behind them helps "future-proof" the wikia. For example, what if PNX had created Vengeance as an episode without a qualifier, then Swiftfire came along and created an episode with the same name a few months later? Then, to keep naming conventions on the good side, PNX (or whoever) would have to come along and change the article name to Vengeance (PNX episode) and all the links in all the articles to match this: no small task. I think it's best to set-up a consistent guideline and follow it wherever we can. That's why I'm kinda a registry-Nazi when it comes to starship articles. I know it makes the title a little bit longer, but it saves a bit of hassle in the long run! --usscantabrian 19:20, 31 January 2008 (UTC) :::::I'm in complete agreement with Scott here. My feelings haven't changed since this topic was broached about 18 months ago. I'm all for consistency and future-proofing when it comes to episode titles. Now, while I doubt that any series other than "She Woke Up Screaming Aloud, A Prayer From Her Secret God" as an episode title, having the (TCE episode) extension behind it makes for consistency, which is good. If everyone follows the same structure, it should also help in simplifying the code for templates like , right? --TimPendragon 20:13, 31 January 2008 (UTC) ::::::I am inclined to agree with Scott too, lets go back to the example of Vengeance (SWF episode), or even better, Eclipse (New Order episode), if someone were to want to write an article about vengeance, or eclipses, and these articles did not have a series suffix, the names would not be available for the subject at hand, atleast not without renaming the episode's article.–- Cpthunt 23:02, 31 January 2008 (UTC) :::::::I still feel that it is largely unnecessary to blanket apply extensions to episode titles. Episode titles have much more room for creativity so I think it is only going to be a minority of titles that will clash, short titles like Vengeance or Omega being prime candidates. Why "future-proof" 1,000 articles when maybe 10% will ever actually need it? Talk about unnecessary hassle! – 03:21, 1 February 2008 (UTC) :I guess it's a question on whether it's more important to simplify the procedure (avoid forcing someone with a different title to do too much work) or simplify the presentation (the title). I think presentation should take precedence and that we should keep the series detail to the disambig situations. The only consistency thing I was wondering about was whether, in those disambig situations, we should go with (SWF episode) or (Swiftfire episode). But I guess that question seems like not as big of a deal now. :-P :To the argument of keeping all episodes and ships with that extra detail - yeah, you'll get consistency, but it won't stop a disambig page from being created. Those will have to exist anyway. Not to mention that when someone comes along with a title of the same name, they should be allowed to change the other person's title and not wait for that other person to do it... Sure, if all episode and ships had extra detail, we'd be consistent, but you're offering a reader info they didn't necessarily ask for. Besides, there's a simplified consistency in having just the title without info unless absolutely necessary. :But you guys are right that we should come up with a policy on episode titling, (same for what Sas mentioned about the extra ship titling detail). There should be a policy on either keeping simplified titling or more detailed titling. (But I'm sure that a titling policy isn't the most important thing to be worked on on STEU right now :-P ) --Hawku 07:28, 1 February 2008 (UTC) ::Again, I vote for the more detailed titling. Future-proofing is the best option. It's a few more characters to type in, but, as Tim also pointed out, I created the template for this purpose, and we could even create templates like Sas did for me like the template to avoid typing the series information at the end or double-typing the episode name. I mean, we create templates to shorten series' names so why not a template to shorten the work to enter episode names? ::Maybe we should adopt the policy (whatever it is), enforce it and then worry about the pages currently on the STEU database, updating them if/when we can. ::I'm just getting visions in my head of someone creating an article links to an episode article that isn't their episode, i.e. "Vengeance" (for argument's sake), then recreating that over several articles before they realise they've made the mistake, or not realizing the mistake at all. ::I know it's more work, but my job at work is quality management systems and policy and procedure development and implementation (well, that's part of quality assurance anyway). I'm pointing this out from my experiences with that side of things. I just think this will all be easier to manage in the long run if we add a few characters stating series and episode after the title. ::I don t think it should be something like "Vengeance" (Star Trek: The Cantabrian Expeditions episode) but a shorter version like "Vengeance" (TCE episode). ::And if we're talking about "unnecessary hassle", why do we have half the MA-copied articles on this database when most series don't seem to use them? Or, for that matter, add "canon" data to articles if it bears no relevance to any series on here? Why are we telling people (including me) that we need to have the same data as on the MA articles when it, more often than not, bears no relevance to any series or characters on this wikia? Do we really need to know that Curzon Dax's best friend's twin brother was aboard the USS Lollipop in 2322? I think ensuring episode titles have a series qualifier in them is far more important than irrelevant data. --usscantabrian 20:34, 1 February 2008 (UTC) :::Okay, forgot to add to, we need to be consistent. That's important too. If we have some episode titles with (TCE episode) behind them and others without, just to qualify them from other episode articles of the same name, where's the consistency in that? --usscantabrian 20:44, 1 February 2008 (UTC) ::::If you use the extension only to disambiguate the article from another article with the same name then that is where the consistency is. But the way things are at the moment are not consistent with some users preferring to add extensions to every episode title and others who only do it if there is a need. Though I do agree with you on going for the shorter extension. – 14:49, 2 February 2008 (UTC) So... has this ever been settled? --TimPendragon 18:06, 23 February 2008 (UTC) :Apparently not. Personally, I just go "New Order (Unity episode)" - Seems to be enough. --Luke80 22:03, 24 February 2008 (UTC) ::I don't think it's resolved either. Like Luke, I use "Isolation (TCE episode)" --usscantabrian 03:53, 27 February 2008 (UTC) :::I thought we had resolved this. Everyone has agreed that the shorter the extension the better, which was the question. – 15:19, 1 March 2008 (UTC) ::::True, but I thought the issue was whether to use extensions all the time or only to disambiguate from common titles. So which is it? --TimPendragon 17:26, 1 March 2008 (UTC) Vote for consistency in episode titling Vote is for all episodes on the wikia to have a consistent naming scheme. The scheme proposed by this vote is all episode articles are named "Episode name (SERIES episode)" as in "Conspiracy (TNG episode)", where the SERIES is replaced by an abbreviated or shortened series name not including the words "Star Trek". Supports # --usscantabrian 20:51, 1 March 2008 (UTC) Objects #-- 00:44, 2 March 2008 (UTC) Comments *This is what some people on the wikia seem to support, so I put it to a vote. Reason why I support it is, while it has longer episode (article) titles, it does support a consistent procedure for naming episodes. For those worried about the links in their articles, the Template:tcee can be modified for each series to use. --usscantabrian 20:51, 1 March 2008 (UTC) *Just because a few episode articles need to have extensions doesn't mean that all episode articles should have extensions. It makes things more complicated and it's unnecessary. – 00:44, 2 March 2008 (UTC)